THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION ARTS & SCIENCES

THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF DURING PUBLIC CRISES TOWARD A THEORY OF GENERIC CONSTRAINTS

ELIZABETH THORNTON RUSH SPRING 2016

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for baccalaureate degrees in Communication Arts and Sciences and Spanish with honors in Communication Arts and Sciences

Reviewed and approved* by the following:

Kirt H. Wilson Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Communication Arts and Sciences Thesis Supervisor

Lori Bedell Senior Lecturer in Communication Arts and Sciences Honors Adviser

* Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i

ABSTRACT

This thesis re-imagines Twitter as a genre of crisis rhetoric. As Twitter has developed

into a journalistic platform that “reports” on public crises, it also has formed repeated patterns of

communication to deal with the “social functions” that such crises necessitate. The discursive

patterns that recur during moments of crisis exhibit several generic characteristics that result

from people “acting together” on Twitter. Previous scholarly approaches to genre inform this

study’s understanding of the fundamental human needs fulfilled on Twitter. In moments of violence and chaos, when a social order has been violated by human behavior, users take to the medium to fulfill three specific social functions: 1) to eliminate uncertainty; 2) to restore order by finding and punishing the party that is made guilty for the order’s violation; 3) to give everyday people agency, the power to contribute to the resolution. Identifying specific public events that sparked dramatic and highly emotional responses, this study explores Twitter as a service, a network, and an ever-evolving genre of crisis.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ...... iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... iv

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

A Brief History of Twitter ...... 2 Contribution of Thesis...... 9 Research Questions ...... 10 Genre as Social (Media) Action ...... 12 Chapter Preview ...... 16

Chapter 2 The Case of the Marathon Bomber ...... 18

In the Aftermath of the Bombing ...... 18 Identifying Twitter’s Genre Characteristics ...... 23 Quality 1: Blaming ...... 24 Quality 2: Jumping to Conclusions ...... 26 Quality 3: Visual Enthymeme ...... 28 Discussion & Implications ...... 30

Chapter 3 Falling for the Ferguson Troll ...... 32

Police Shootings & Black Male Teens ...... 33 Tweets from the Troll ...... 36 Repeated Characteristics of Genre ...... 38 Quality 1: Blaming ...... 38 Quality 2: Jumping to Conclusions ...... 40 Quality 3: Visual Enthymeme ...... 42 Discussion & Implications ...... 46

Chapter 4 Understanding Critical Twitter Discourse as a Genre ...... 48

Important Generic Themes ...... 48 So Where Do We Go From Here? ...... 51

Appendix #BostonBombing ...... 54

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 60

iii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Tripathi Family Facebook Page ...... 21

Figure 2. The Notorious White Hat ...... 29

Figure 3. Screenshot of Huffington Post Deleted Article ...... 36

Figure 4. The Troll's Big Reveal ...... 37

Figure 5. Sebastian Murdock's Apology ...... 37

Figure 6. Gas Station Footage Still ...... 42

Figure 7. Conspiracy Theories Abounding ...... 43

Figure 8. Christmas Eve Tragi-Comic ...... 44

Figure 9. Appropriating the Most Interesting Man in the World ...... 45

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, thanks to my honors advisor Lori Bedell for riding this wave with me for three

whole years. Lori finally convinced me that committing to one topic is not the same as

summarizing all of my interests in one thesis, lifting my imaginary burden (and a million others).

Thank you to my thesis supervisor Kirt Wilson for being remarkably patient throughout this

process. By helping me to articulate my ideas and teaching me how to better structure my life for

writing, Kirt made this entire project possible. Another thank you to Andrea Tapia, Nick LaLone,

and Anthony Kim for offering my first taste of graduate-level research. And a final thanks to my mom and dad, always.

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

I couldn’t sleep. It was Monday, a school night, and the red digital numbers of my alarm

clock blinked 11:05 p.m. back at me. Surrendering to insomnia, I grabbed my iPhone and opened

my Twitter app. As a junior in high school, I evaded sleep by scrolling through seemingly

infinite tweets. Typically, I read jokes from my favorite comedians and checked out what my friends were saying. But this night was different. On May 11, 2011, Osama Bin Laden’s name pervaded Twitter. Years had passed without public knowledge of his whereabouts. Disbelieving my Twitter timeline, I clicked on the hashtag #osamadead and found myself exposed to every tweet about him in real time. From anonymous users to celebrities to professional journalists, seemingly everyone was updating the Twittersphere at hyper-speed. What was I seeing?

As the feed grew before my eyes, I realized I was watching history unfold. In another

sense, though, I was witnessing a communication phenomenon that I had never seen before. I

wondered whether anyone else had recognized this form of discourse. Refreshing my screen

became a compulsion. When no new tweets appeared at the top of my feed, I snapped back to

reality, sprinting downstairs to ask my parents if they knew what was happening. We turned on

the television to check CNN, but the news hadn’t broken yet. The people of the “Twitterverse”

knew what broadcast television did not: Osama Bin Laden was—or might be—dead. Still, I

couldn’t know for sure. Could the content of these tweets be true? Were these journalists and

celebrities mistaken? Which source should I trust—the staid “talking heads” of broadcast

journalism or the diverse and often irreverent voices of the ? 2 For ten minutes, my parents and I waited in silence. Finally, Anderson Cooper announced

that President Obama would address the nation at 11:35p.m. He suggested, further, that the

president might be making an important announcement about the war on terror. Only when I

heard the president confirm what Twitter users had already reported could I breathe a sigh of

relief. However, in that moment, I had a second realization: Moving forward, Twitter would be a key player in the distribution of breaking news.

A Brief History of Twitter

Until 2010, the digital world had been accepted as an “elsewhere;” that is, the digital world was considered separate from our physical reality, and disconnecting from the digital meant reconnecting to the physical. Sociologist Nathan Jurgenson coined the alleged distinction as a “digital dualism” in his post “The IRL Fetish.” There, he described how the online and offline interactions of human beings were misunderstood to be worlds apart: “The common

(mis)understanding is experience is zero-sum: time spent online means less spent offline. We are either jacked into the Matrix or not; we are either looking at our devices or not.”1 According to

Jurgenson, digital dualism was a myth; the two worlds were not only intertwined, they were

synonymous. Especially now, Jurgenson’s point is even more evident. Today, physical and

digital interactions among human beings have merged in a way that enables communication to

perform social and relational functions that have real, “physical” implications. The way that we

a) learn about, b) address, and c) discuss current events has adapted with our societal emphasis

on immediacy, and we blend the digital and physical so thoroughly that there is almost no 3 distinction between them. I contend this is precisely what human beings have done with the

social network application and service “Twitter.”

One way to understand how human beings have synthesized the digital into their

everyday existence is to consider how Twitter began and evolved as a social networking service

and technology company. The notion of a “personal connection between people in real-time” sounds standard in 2016, but in 2006, it proved profound. That year, founders Jack Dorsey, Evan

Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass created “twttr,” an app meant to mimic statuses on AOL instant messenger (AIM). On AIM, users could know what their friends were doing without asking them simply by reading an online “status” statement, something like “homework, brb” (be right back), or “working out,” or simply “away.” Dorsey and Stone noticed that short message service technologies (SMS) had been gaining traction in the , and they wanted to send their own version of “texts” via the internet. Initial Twitter timelines read like shouts of opinions, shortening traditional blog post lengths from 500 words to 140 characters. SMS capped texts at 160 characters, and Twitter usernames are between 1 and 15 characters, so the word limit left room for a username and a message.2 Eventually, the group succeeded in buying the vowels

for the domain name: Twitter.com.3 The site’s original homepage read, “a way to tell friends

family and coworkers what you’re up to in real time,” but, while this statement represented the

first “mission” of Twitter, it soon became just a small subset of Twitter’s purpose and content.

Nearly ten years since its debut, Twitter has experienced unforeseen stages of social

transformation. Initially, the site had focused on general information distribution; users relied on

a loose collection of friends all networked together to stay informed on what mattered to that

small friendship , from important news articles to funny cat videos. However, this nascent

distribution network slowly became its own personal branding service. The utility of Twitter to 4 establish personal brands and to advance the interests of small technology-oriented entrepreneurs was immediately evident for its first users—the digerati1 who lived in Silicon Valley, San

Francisco, and Washington state. As Twitter’s branding power became more apparent, traditional

celebrities of entertainment industries turned toward the service. Twitter soon became a way to

engage with fans, promote new material, and a managed persona. In many respects, the

entry of celebrities like Stephen Colbert, Oprah, and Lady Gaga signaled an important evolution

in Twitter. Celebrity had always been part of the platform, but whereas Twitter celebrities had

once been culled from the ranks of the digerati, the entry of traditional television, film, and

music celebrities gave the rest of society a reason to join Twitter. The average American might

not know about the inner-workings of Silicon Valley capital-venture funding, a common topic

among the first celebrities of Twitter, but if you were curious to know what Kim Kardashian or

Kanye West were doing that evening, Twitter was the place to find out. Thus, as entertainment

celebrities moved into the Twitterverse, so did the general public, igniting an explosion of the

platform and an expansion of its installation base.

Just as the site had become an important intersection for the entertainment industry and

its fan-base, Twitter next became a space where politicians could interact with their constituents

and the rest of the nation. In order to get an edge on their opponents and to prove their “tech-

savviness” with a younger voting generation, politicians, or more often their staff surrogates,

tweeted the politicians’ perspectives on their opponents and policies. In turn, their tweets

encouraged their voting bases and earned “retweets” with attention-grabbing content. At

approximately the same time that politicians moved onto the Twitter platform, corporations and

1 These are the elite of the computer industry and other online communities. Well-known computer scientists, tech writers, and bloggers make up much of the digerati. For famous examples, see Kevin Rose, , and Veronica Belmont. 5 private businesses like Starbucks, ESPN, and Amazon decided to create Twitter accounts.

Increasingly, these corporations use Twitter as a form of customer service. As a common example, airlines like United are (in)famous for answering complaints as passengers tweet their frustrations with delayed flights and lost luggage. In many respects, a significant commercial

relationship exists between celebrities and corporations. With massive follower counts,

celebrities often discuss their experiences with corporate products, giving corporations either

good or bad publicity, depending on the tweet. All it takes is for one celebrity like Ellen

DeGeneres to tweet a picture and the text, “I love my new CoverGirl concealer!” and CoverGirl

sees an increase in targeted traffic on their site. Conversely, it only takes one or two celebrities,

such as Taylor Swift, to declare their displeasure toward a corporate product or service and soon

that corporation must scramble to make things right. Seeing how these companies interact with

their consumer base can either bolster or undermine a company’s public image, and the trend of

company-client communication only appears to be growing among 320 million active users of

the service.

Focus of the Thesis

Throughout these stages of Twitter’s evolution, one dimension has remained constant.

Twitter acts as a space where “information” is distributed to a wide array of individuals who have actively selected to receive it. But this general principle begs an important question: What constitutes newsworthy information? In many respects, the informational distribution quality of

Twitter, which is its fundamental characteristic, is a type of “journalism.” If journalism is understood as the distribution of “news” across a platform (television, newspapers, or the internet) to inform readers, then Twitter is a journalistic channel. One might argue that the 6 “news” that Twitter distributes is not particularly interesting or important. Often, tweets are personal expressions of opinion, links to articles, or topical memes; nevertheless, for its users,

Twitter is undeniably a source of information that they value. That news might be about a

Twitter “beef” between rappers or a comedian’s rant that roasts some political gaffe, but the tawdry nature of that information does not make it any less newsworthy for those individuals who have decided to “follow” the Twitter accounts that publish such information.

But, perhaps even more importantly, it is crucial to appreciate that Twitter has become about much more than the headlines of gossip columns. As individuals throughout the United

States walk around with portable computers (i.e., smartphones) in their pockets, Twitter has become a platform for real, “hard hitting” news events. Most of Twitter might still be devoted to issues that are personal or popular, but more and more, Twitter has become a platform for the distribution and discussion of news about issues of public concern. When everyday citizens report what they have “seen” on Twitter, acting as citizen journalists, Twitter serves as a

“digital” place where “physical” news is recorded and made available to the public. “Live- tweeting” has always been a part of the Twitter experience, but the coverage had been limited to sports games, TV shows, and other events with lower stakes than a national crisis. Now, Jack

Dorsey asserts, “We break news 10 to 15 minutes before any other service.”4 With 80% of active users on mobile devices, Twitter allows people to share information on the go; moreover, if they are in the right place at the right time, users may tweet about breaking news. Effectively,

Twitter’s form and evolving function have changed the way we communicate in critical moments of national crisis. That fact, as I will explain shortly, is the fundamental experience that motivates this honors thesis. 7 Simultaneously personal and private, Twitter presents rhetorical opportunities but finds itself at a crossroads, particularly in moments of crisis. All at once, tweets address everyone and no one; users simply do not have time to review all the information that is available before they make a decision. Trending topics experience meteoric rises over a week or even the course of twenty-four hours, collecting hundreds of thousands of voices in one place, but just as quickly, they disappear. Particularly in the wake of a crisis that involves violence or publicly experienced moments of chaos, people turn to to perform very specific social functions. These functions include but are not limited to: making sense of the chaos that a community or even a nation is experiencing, attempting to define what that moment of crisis actually is (terrorism, accident, crime, etc.), categorizing and assigning blame/responsibility for the crisis that was created. After all, a crisis is rarely resolved unless and until someone is held responsible for its creation. In this instance, when a crisis brings digital communities and local, physical communities together, a particular kind of rhetoric, of public discourse emerges. Furthermore, that public discourse does not tend to differ every time that a crisis emerges. Rather, the discourse that develops on Twitter looks more or less like the discourse that transpired during the prior crisis and the crisis before that, etc., etc. In other words, I hypothesize that as Twitter has evolved into a journalistic platform that “reports” on major national crises, it also has begun to develop repeated patterns of communication to deal with the “social functions” that such crises create. Put differently, there are generic characteristics that emerge in the Twitter discourse that surround a moment of violence and crisis, as reported and distributed through the Twitterverse.

Carolyn Miller has discussed how discourse operates to create generic responses or

“genres” that emerge to address the social needs of human communities. In particular, she argues that although every moment of discourse is unique, patterns exist precisely because the collective 8 needs of a community repeat. For example, in time of war, the specifics of the conflict always differ, but the basic needs of a nation remain constant. The nation needs to feel that it is justified in going to war; it must believe that the sacrifice of lives and resources is justified, that there are no other options except military conflict, and that the nation will win. These “social needs” give rise to very specific patterns of communication that attempt to address each of these concerns.

The details may differ, but the discourse is recognizable to anyone who has studied what “war rhetoric” looks like across cases. As Miller argues, “a classification of discourse will be rhetorically sound if it contributes to an understanding of how discourse works – that is, if it reflects the rhetorical experience of the people who create and interpret the discourse.”5 My study begins by presupposing that Twitter is still a communication platform that is in the midst of its own evolution; nevertheless, it has begun to exhibit predictable patterns of discourse in response to certain situations. I believe that one of those situations involves moments of violent crisis such as the two cases that I examine here.

This honors thesis will apply rhetorical constraints of genre to our present use of social media technology to understand mass digital responses during moments of violent crisis. Since I joined Twitter in 2011, I have been fascinated by the way we engage with each other in real- time, especially when trying to make sense of serious public problems. I have grown to rely on my Timeline for the most up-to-date news, when I want it, wherever I want it, but I have experienced first-hand the temptation to jump to conclusions as well. From noting repeated responses to crises, I draw a connection to Miller’s definition of genre: “The idea of genre marks large-scale repeated patterns in human symbolic production and interaction, patterns that are taken to be meaningful. They thus can be defined by reference to pattern, or form, and by 9 reference to theories of meaning and interaction.”6 Recognizing this communication on Twitter, I want to better understand this phenomenon by studying these patterns and their social function.

In order to examine our behavior and rhetorical choices on Twitter, I have selected two events that sparked dramatic and highly emotional responses on the internet: 1) the

“mis”identification of the Boston Marathon bomber in April 2013 and 2) the Huffington Post’s

misinformed coverage of Antonio Martin’s death in December 2014. The instance of the Boston

Marathon bombing is unique because the authorities relied on the crowd for a moment, and there

was subsequent “mis”-action toward the wrong suspect. Similarly, misinformation ran rampant

on Twitter following an untrue description of how Antonio Martin died. Studying these cases

reveals both repeated characteristics in the form and function of critical online discourse.

Contribution of Thesis

My research into how Twitter sustains repeated “generic” forms of discourse in moments

of crisis contributes to three distinct conversations: 1) scholarly dialogue surrounding crisis

rhetoric, 2) discussions of current social media technology, and 3) the academic conversation

among rhetorical theories about how genres are “equipment for living.”7 Until now, presidential

crisis rhetoric has served as perhaps the clearest example for communication in the crisis genre.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson opened this dialogue when they argued that

presidential crisis rhetoric should be approached as its own genre, since it follows dynamic but

structured patterns. Describing genres as “stylistic and substantive responses to perceived

situational demands,” Campbell and Jamieson argue that situational demands and not theoretical

categories should serve as the basis for how we identify and define genres.8 In other words, an 10 “Inaugural Address” is not a genre because of a theoretical or ideal notion of what a presidential inaugural address should be; rather, the “Inaugural Address” exists because such speeches meet the “situational demands” that presidents encounter when they take the oath of office and must, of necessity, unite the country behind their administration after a contentious election.

Thus, what gives a genre its character is the “constellation” of substantive and stylistic forms that emerge in response to a recurring situation. It is this “dynamic constellation of forms” within a genre that serves to produce a particular rhetorical effect in a recurrent human situation.

In this study, I engage the situational element that Campbell and Jamieson discuss in their theory of genre, but I seek to apply it to situations and rhetorical “constellations” in digital “spaces” like a Twitter timeline. Acknowledging their work, I strive to expand on their claims by interpreting what rhetorical choices take place during moments of crisis on Twitter.

Research Questions

Several research questions drive this rhetorical study. On the one hand, I am interested in understanding what other scholars have said about how rhetoric is used to provide meaning in moments of crisis and how these instances spark public and political judgments on social media such as Twitter. In particular, I ask: How do Twitter users respond to a moment of violent crisis?

For the purposes of this paper, it is important understand “crisis” as a moment of violence that elapses over a course of only several days. The compounding of these moments lends to a sense of chaos and absence of clarity. We turn to social media in these moments in order to make crises make sense. Aristotle recognized the human need for order to make sense in the aftermath of 11 tragic or grave events: “It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.”2 According to a number of rhetoric scholars, including Kenneth Burke, people seek to re-establish order in moments when a crisis has disrupted that order. Order is a requirement for situational clarity and a remedy for the discomfort that social disruption and chaos create.

So, for example, in a crisis when one individual violates the law or behaviorial norms of a community, order is re-established often through the arrest, prosecution, and punishment of a guilty party. One might argue that this is precisely what transpired in the infamous instance of

Jerry Sandusky’s abuse of children on and around Penn State’s campus. Sandusky was arrested, vilified by the public media and almost everyone within the community, legally tried for his crimes, and sentenced to prison. At the same time, as the Sandusky example also illustrates, the process of “re-establishing” a broken order is not clean or easy. Indeed, multiple people and even entire institutions may be blamed for the chaos that accompanies a crisis. It is the very lack of clarity in moments of crisis that pushes human beings to grasp desperately for facts, so that judgment passes swiftly and the violation is put to rest. I maintain that we see a similar process on Twitter. The same social functions and rhetorical activities that might overwhelm a single community, like State College, in the event of a major crisis are sometimes distributed to a

“virtual” community that spans states and even nations. Seen in this light, perhaps the best definition of crisis that one might propose is to acknowledge that moments of violation, when the structures of an ordered society are disrupted by violence or crime, also entail a radical lack of clarity, a moment when the situation itself is completely unclear even to those individuals who are closest to it. Moreover, in that moment, we cannot know if our responses are appropriate or

2 This famous quote is unsourced but consistently credited to Aristotle. 12 over-reactive. Only in retrospect can we evaluate hasty decisions and learn from our mistakes. I

contend that the study of our digital, critical choices deserves a closer look.

Genre as Social (Media) Action

To conduct this research, I use a rhetorical approach to genre theory. Genre conventions

emerge across discourse communities over time to support the communication of ideas and

information in socially and cognitively compatible forms. But while genres are a widely

recognized phenomenon, a single definition of the concept does not exist. Miller’s article “Genre

as Social Action” expounds on the ambiguity:

Although rhetorical criticism has recently provided a profusion of claims that certain discourses constitute a distinctive class, or genre, rhetorical criticism has not provided firm guidance on what constitutes a genre. For example, rhetorical genres have been defined by similarities in strategies or forms in the discourses, by similarities in audience, by similarities in modes of thinking, by similarities in rhetorical situations.9

The diversity of genre types as well as disagreements over what precisely a rhetorical

genre is reveal a ranging history. Aristotle first divided the art of rhetoric into three types: deliberative, forensic, and epideictic. As the first widely recognized example of genres, the

Greek tri-partite division of oratory spawned a long tradition of defining and categorizing.

Deliberative types of oratory came to mean political deliberations for the common good; forensic

represented the legal deliberations that took place in courtroom settings or before a jury of fellow

citizens, and epideictic described those moments and modes of speech that involved celebrations,

anniversaries, and eulogies. Compared to judicial and deliberative genres, the epideictic genre

was Aristotle’s least clearly defined topic. However, according to Aristotle’s conception of 13 epideixis, “the present is the most important; for all speakers praise or blame in regard to existing qualities, but they often make use of other things, both reminding [the audience] of the past and projecting the course of the future.”10 As early as the period of the Roman Empire, however,

Quintilian reported widespread dissent on the classification system that Aristotle envisioned.

Those disagreements have extended to the present and have expanded to include arguments about the nature of genre itself. Nevertheless, despite considerable disagreement, the classical genres first established by Aristotle persist to this day.11

Today there are multiple theories of genre that span Communication Studies, English

Composition, Literature, Film, Television, and other academic fields where the study of public discourse leads to systems of classification. While these various theories differ from one another, at least three key elements seem to appear in each: All theories of genre acknowledge that genres emerge when similar situations occur and recur within the same community across time (e.g., presidential elections, periods of war, moments of gun violence, etc.); theories of genre identify substantive and stylistic characteristics that exist across individual cases of their use (e.g., the repeated reference to God in every U.S. Presidential Inaugural Address or the strategy of denial in many apologia speeches); 3) theories of genre identify an organizing principle that explains why patterns of discourse appear and reappear (e.g., cultural or historical traditions, the repeated success of a particular genre of discourse or specific social and collective “need”). Rhetorical critic Sonja K. Foss explains that regardless of how one organizes a genre, the category scheme that emerges must have a pragmatic element. That is, it must warrant or serve some kind of rhetorical purpose.12

This study hypothesizes that either a genre exists or that a genre is currently developing on Twitter that emerges to a specific, repeated set of circumstances. When a “situation” of crisis 14 emerges, a crisis that is caused by human behavior and violates some important principle of social order, people on Twitter respond in predictable patterns of public discourse. This should not be surprising. After all, a basic assumption of the generic perspective is that rhetoric cannot be reduced to a single moment or a single case. Rhetoric is constituted by a family of rhetorical objects, many of which can be categorized into subgroups and sets. Both diachronic and synchronic, Twitter’s form and flow should be studied as a phenomenon, both over time and as one critical instance. At one level, a single pattern of discourse becomes apparent in the form of a “constellation.” Campbell and Jamieson’s explain that “the term ‘constellation’ suggests another metaphorical insight. The stars forming a constellation are individuals but they are influenced by each other and by external elements; consequently they move together and remain in a similar relation to each other despite their varying positions over time.”13 We are able to see a movement: a crescendo, a climax, and a swift downfall. “Like genres, constellations are perceived patterns with significance and usefulness — they enable us to see the movements of a group of individual stars and they able us to understand the interrelated forces in celestial space.”14 I argue that while Twitter is full of single tweets, those tweets are not unlike the stars in the metaphor that Campbell and Jamieson build to understand genre. They exist individually, but they also contribute simultaneously to larger patterns of interaction.

In this project, I use a flexible approach to genre as explained by Miller: “The understanding of rhetorical genre that I am advocating is based in … the conventions of discourse that a society establishes as ways of ‘acting together.’ It does not lend itself to taxonomy, for genres change, evolve, and decay; the number of genres current in any society is indeterminate and depends upon the complexity and diversity of the society.”15 Miller argues that as people “act together” in times of uncertainty, they engage in ways that are fundamentally 15 human; that is, people function socially to meet inherent needs that seem to be tied to our very humanity. Granted, not all of these functions are healthy or positive. For example, human beings, both individually and collectively, have a need to belong. We join groups to gain a sense of shared identity and, often through healthy expressions of empathy and sharing; in this, we meet our need for belonging. That said, human beings also meet this need by acting in hostile or even violent ways toward those who are labeled “alien” or “other.” As Kenneth Burke reminds us, sometimes the most powerful forms of identification with a society are not based on what members have in common but only by their common opposition to an identified enemy. In much the same way, genres can meet specific social needs, but how a particular genre proceeds to meet that need might be positive or negative, healthy or harmful.

For this thesis, I argue that in moments of crisis when a social order has been violated by human behavior, Twitter users take to that medium to fulfill three specific social functions.

These social functions are: 1) To eliminate uncertainty; 2) To restore order by finding and punishing the party that is made guilty for the order’s violation; 3) To give everyday people agency, the power to contribute to the resolution of the crisis that has transpired. These social functions are not new. They have existed perhaps for as long as human beings have used language to gather together in groups. At the same time, the technology of Twitter has provided a new way for these social functions to be expressed and experienced. On Twitter, everyone is simultaneously a co-producer and co-consumer of the discourse that meets these social needs.

Twitter exists as a strange combination of town hall meeting where everyone has a voice and an international publishing machine where the voice of one individual might be heard on the other side of the world. Furthermore, the immediacy and anonymity of these online interactions can exacerbate both our best and our worst human tendencies, especially amid a crisis. Some might 16 argue that the power and reach of Twitter is actually a problem, because it provides an outlet for

negative experiences. “The brain… reacts more strongly to stimuli it deems negative. There is a

greater surge in electrical activity. Thus, our attitudes are more heavily influenced by downbeat

news than good news.”16 Unfortunately, as I will explain in the chapters that follow, the genre that is emerging on Twitter seems to replicate more of the human dimensions of blame and negativity rather than the more socially positive expressions of care and empathy.

Chapter Preview

In this chapter, Chapter 1 of my thesis, I have established the framework for my research

based on theories of genre and Twitter-based communication. To answer the question of how

Twitter responds to uncertainty, I identified several social functions within the genre that have

evolved over time but remain identifiable in Twitter’s form. The following two chapters will

look at Twitter-based communication following, first, the Boston Marathon bombings and,

second, the death of Antonio Martin. Examining the specific contexts and tweets that responded

to these crises will inform how patterns of communication emerge in each case. From these

patterns, we can extrapolate what such communication means for the formation of genre in

moments of crisis. I have chosen these two situations for several reasons, but one of the most

important reason is that each offers a different type of crisis for analysis. In the first case, the

bombing shocked the nation, prompting social media hysteria and confusion. Its unexpected

nature required social action, which Twitter users quickly embraced. Conversely, the second case

held less shock-value, because the shooting of Antonio Martin followed a series of similar events

when young African American males died after tragic interactions with local police. This crisis 17 requires an understanding of the historical context in order to appreciate its greater meaning. In both cases, the characteristics of a new genre come to the forefront, despite external differences.

Chapter 4 will make sense of the form, substance, and function of these cases to analyze their larger contribution to genre theory and speculate what this Twitter genre of crisis rhetoric means moving forward. 18 Chapter 2

The Case of the Boston Marathon Bomber

We still do not know who did this or why, and people shouldn't jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. But make no mistake: we will get to the bottom of this. And we will find out who did this. We will find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups, will feel the full weight of justice. — Barack Obama

In spite of President Barack Obama’s national address just hours after the bombing,

Twitter users clambered to identify the bomber, trying to trump the authorities’ efforts by collecting and sharing as many “facts” as possible. But what began as a well-intentioned public investigation quickly made the President’s call for patience all the more grave as the search led to a tragic misidentification. The tweets from the digital witch-hunt demonstrate particular characteristics unique to both crises and Twitter. For this chapter, I will identify and discuss three of these characteristics in order to understand their social functions and establish the generic elements that seem to recur on Twitter in such moments.

In the Aftermath of the Bombing

To better understand what occurred online, it is important to set the historical scene. On

Monday, April 15, 2013, at 2:49 p.m., the Boston Marathon came to a screeching halt when two bombs exploded 210 yards from the finish line, killing three people and injuring an estimated

264 others. In the first few moments after the explosion, chaos reigned. The injured were helped away from the blast, and medics who were on the scene to assist marathon runners suddenly

19 became the first responders at what appeared to be a terrorist attack. Even the news media

scrambled to explain what happened. Boston became the site of a manhunt as the Federal Bureau

of Investigation (FBI) and local authorities searched for the bombing suspects. Special Agent

Rick DesLauriers, the head of the FBI's Boston office, described exactly who they were looking

for:

The men were photographed walking down Boylston Street, one behind the other, near the finish line of Monday's race. Suspect 1 was seen wearing a light-colored, collarless shirt underneath a dark-colored jacket and wearing a dark baseball cap. The man identified as Suspect 2 was seen setting down a backpack at the site of the second explosion "within minutes" of the blasts that killed three people and wounded nearly 180... He was wearing a light-colored hooded sweatshirt, a black jacket and a white baseball cap turned backward.17

With these descriptions fresh in the minds of the public, the FBI then invited national crowdsourced assistance, inadvertently inciting a second manhunt online. Although the FBI offered a page where people could upload potential evidence, citizens already had set up their own spaces for sleuthing. Much of the online activity developed on a specific website: the popular “.com.” Self-coined “the front page of the internet,” Reddit exists as “a community of people who submit links and vote them up or down based on their quality, novelty or general ability to generate amusement.”18 The site has a proven ability to crowdsource digital clues, and

its built-in voting system allows users to bump up the comments they deem most helpful.19

Within hours of the event, Reddit knew more about the situation at ground zero than emergency

responders did – and these bystanders were not even physically present. Redditors scoured the

freely broadcast police band for names of victims, names of suspects, and any further news. To be clear, it isn’t unusual for the police to ask the public for help them identify anyone who might

20 shed some light on a crime.3 But, in this particular incident, the resulting action was unprecedented: “[this] was the first time … crowdsourcing itself gained a degree of consciousness that allowed it to obtain a significant degree of communicative and investigative power.”20 In this case, Reddit was the investigative arm of social media; Twitter was the communication channel by which new discoveries were announced and made public.

As broadcasting stations and online newspapers struggled to keep up with the information surge, Twitter looked like the logical choice for raw updates from eyewitnesses to the bombings and the eventual manhunt: “In the days following the ordeal many claimed that this was social media - and especially Twitter’s - golden hour, where the medium truly got to show itself from its best possible angle through spot news coverage by witnesses to the bombings and the police chase that followed.”21 Countless tweets served to propagate information. The most important of these Twitter updates was the announcement of the alleged identity of the bomber: “If you want to follow live updates on the bomb attacks in Boston Reddit news has good sources: http://t.co/v0oYl6wEIb,” “SubReddit organizing to find suspects for the boston bombing.

#gointernet http://t.co/Z6I9u7JURm,” and “RIGHT NOW - BOSTON POLICE ARE IN

PURSUIT OF MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECT SUNIL TRIPATHI LAST SEEN NEAR

PANERA BREAD NEIGHBORHOOD. @bbc5live.” Yet in of spite both Reddit and Twitter’s best intentions, unbridled misinformation quickly carved its own course for the investigation.

3 The idea of the police seeking help from the public during an investigation is by no means new. The earliest examples of public help are through police wanted posters. These posters led to crime tip lines as telephones became more readily available followed by television-lead call-in shows such as America’s Most Wanted. In the spirit of a new type of tip line, the FBI initially asked bystanders to contribute photographs and videos of the marathon in order to find better images of the suspects. This hybrid tip line and data repository worked well – thousands of photographs and short video clips were submitted to authorities. The practice of average citizens reporting on activities “on-the-ground” during a disaster is seen as increasingly valuable. Andrea H. Tapia, et al., “Run Amok.”

21 At 12:00 p.m. on April 19, 2013, the FBI officially announced that Sunil Tripathi, one of

Reddit’s publicly identified leads, was not a suspect. 22-year-old Tripathi had been taking a leave of absence from Brown University in Rhode Island when he left his apartment near campus on March 16. From various mounted surveillance cameras, footage captured the college student drifting through Providence’s streets on a cold March night.22 When Tripathi did not return for

several days, his relatives began a search, working with local police and the FBI in an attempt to

locate him. But Tripathi’s body would not be found in the Providence Harbor until April 23.23

In the interim, the Tripathi family’s Facebook page, intended to raise awareness for their

missing son, became a place for pointing fingers. Strangers repurposed the page to post hurtful—

and false—allegations that Tripathi was one of the bombers, insisting that the FBI’s image of

“the man in the white hat” bared a strong resemblance to Tripathi. One user tweeted: “Dear Sunil

Tripathi we will find you and we will kill you just like we did your friend Mike Mulugeta4

Figure 1. Tripathi Family Facebook Page

4 Alexis C. Madrigal from The Atlantic sheds light on the Mulugeta mystery: “at 2:14am Eastern, an official on the police scanner said, ‘Last name: Mulugeta, M-U-L-U-G-E-T-A, M as in Mike, Mulugeta.’ And thus was born the newest suspect in the case: Mike Mulugeta. It doesn't appear that Mulugeta, whoever he or she is, has a first name of Mike. And yet that name, ‘Mike Mulugeta,’ was about to become notorious.” Anonymous News first broke the news of the false suspects in a tweet that gained rapid attention and took on a life of its own, but it remains to be seen if Mulugeta is even a real person. Madrigal, Alexis C. Madrigal, "#BostonBombing: The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, Apr. 19 2013.

22 #TheEnd #BostonMarathon #PrayForBoston.” The rumors spread almost as quickly as the tweets

filled people’s timelines.

News vans began to stake out the Tripathi family’s home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, with reporters from The to CNN calling Tripathi’s sister Sangeeta 58 times between 3:00am and 4:00am.24 Sangeeta told Al Jazeera America, “What started off as people saying ‘This image and your brother look the same’ became ‘This image is your brother.’ That became ‘How are you providing a cover for your brother to do this?’ … My mother kept wanting to pick up her phone, because she said, ‘What if it’s Sunil?’ I said, ‘It’s not Sunil.’”25

While their son’s disappearance and tragic death devastated the Tripathi family, the restless digital detectives and the subsequent media circus magnified their grief. Four days after the initial bombing, authorities finally found and captured the actual 19-year-old bomber,

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, six miles from Boston in Watertown, effectively terminating Reddit’s

witch-hunt. But the damage was done. The founder of the subReddit r/findbostonbombers (a

niche forum) admits that it was naïve to trust that the theories from within the photo page

wouldn't spread beyond Reddit; he was "truly sorry" for outing Tripathi, encouraging the

harassment of the Tripathi family, and reopening the wounds of losing their son in the first place.

Ultimately, Sunil’s suicide and the search for the marathon bomber were tragically

coincidental.26

While these Redditors and Twitter users may have appeared to compete with official

news media to be the leaders of the crisis narrative, major media conglomerates ultimately

became the amateur sleuths’ cohorts, furthering followers’ desire to know the “nowcast.” Still,

many of these outlets just repeated the false claims made online, providing a megaphone to

erroneous statements, “29 percent of all tweets posted and reposted were rumors and fake

23 content, and the researchers noted that: ‘Rumors or fake or incorrect information spread via

online social media, have resulted in chaos and damage to people in the real world.’”27 In retrospect, Twitter proved indecorous to the formal structure of law and exacerbated errors since the media distributed users’ claims even further.

With this understanding of the context that surrounded the , we can turn to the abstract, digital context that fostered drastic rhetorical choices.

Identifying Twitter’s Genre Characteristics

Following the misidentification of Tripathi, “[public] sentiment about Reddit went from

positive to very negative.”28 There was a visuality to the way that people reacted on Twitter

between April 15 and 25, 2013. Tweets crescendo and ultimately fizzle over the course of the

week. From Penn State University, the crisis informatics team of Anthony Kim, Nick LaLone,

and Andrea Tapia conducted a large-scale sentiment analysis that focused on the aftermath of the

bombing:

We chose Twitter as our data repository and conducted analyses of tweets sent during the Boston Bombing. These data were scraped from the public Twitter search API using the hashtag #prayforboston, Boston, bomb, and bombs. There were approximately 23,642,905 tweets that account for nearly all tweets posted between the dates of April 15th and April 25th about the Boston Bombing.29

Scanning the series as a singular but fluid rhetorical artifact, I analyzed 514 tweets the team

collected containing the word “Reddit” and 529 tweets about “Sunil Tripathi,” starting with the

initial bombing and ending at the misidentification. The collection as a whole shows movement

and variation of sentiment and opinion.

24 Using these two smaller compilations, I am able to look more closely than I would at hundreds of thousands of tweets while maintaining the range of reactions. With this content for analysis, I connect the qualities that characterize the Twitter discourse about the event. Three major patterns stand out as I look at the tweets together: blaming, jumping to conclusions, and creating what I call a “visual enthymeme.” Blaming and jumping to conclusions should be straightforward, but visual enthymeme warrants a contextual description. A classical understanding of enthymeme insists on a sort of syllogism in which an audience provides its premises. In this, the audience and speakers share tacit assumptions. Expanding Aristotle’s concept, visual enthymeme possesses several persuasive elements: 1) they involve probable premises and conclusions that allow for multiple interpretations by audiences; (2) they accommodate ethical and emotional dimensions of argument; and (3) they depend on agreement between messenger and audience. 30 Particularly on Twitter, a visual enthymeme comes to represent the entire crisis in all of its chaos. In the following sections, I will provide samples to show how blaming, jumping to conclusions, and visual enthymeme characteristics function.

Quality 1: Blaming

As delineated in Chapter 1, crafting blame has served to define problems, categorize situations, and clear up uncertainty when crises arise. Within the rhetorical situation of crisis, people are inclined to engage in such action, but on Twitter, the categorization happens remarkably faster. Immediately following the misidentification, apocryphal “facts” (unlike the ones President Obama called for) emerged and spawned several lines of blame.

25 Some users condemned Twitter directly, asking, “Local news media in Boston refuting reports missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi is a suspect... has Twitter jumped the gun?” and

“Hey Twitter Where does Sunil Tripathi go to get his reputation back? #EpicTwitterFail #Boston

#SunilTripathi #journalism101.” Others played into political partisanship, insisting, “Libtards who jumped the gun on Sunil Tripathi exposed http://t.co/n98pSyBko5.” Regardless of the arguments, the messages promoted further action via social media.

Twitter’s structure of controlled chaos amplifies the blame quality’s substantive characteristics: retweets gain momentum when they appear to define what was previously unclear or revert to epideictic praise or blame. We’re able to witness movement over the fixed time span, with qualitative contents, like, “This @Reddit user may have just identified the

Boston Marathon bombing suspects: RETWEET!!! #Boston #AnonCorpWatch.” The participants, both bystander and media, participated in a policing investigation without the same training, constraints or awareness as officials have; however, despite that lack of training, these participants perhaps have more reach than official responders can obtain. This sort of velocity is supported not only by the form of the tweets but by their content: “#Reddit and #twitter a solid

10 minutes ahead of @CNN #boston #mit #watertown #wtfboston”; “Its incredible that Reddit updates far faster than traditional media on this Boston situation the power of the Internet I suppose.” Such comments display how effortlessly Twitter users can back ideas as they unfold before the public eye.

At the same time, these online interfaces, acting as a setting, played into that expectation.

Reddit served as the source of action, with Twitter as its commentator: “Purportedly one of

Reddits false suspects in the Boston bombings (Sunil Tripathi) has been found dead. Grim indictment of citizen reporting”; “Just horrified that this man identified (falsely) as being the

26 Boston bomber by Reddit users could have been murdered. Fucking racism.” Blame spiraled into

downright vilification because users finally had a legitimate source to blame: Reddit had failed.

Several tweets exemplified this chance to make bold, backed claims, arguing, “Irresponsible

Reddit users smear name of missing college student: [link] via @Salon h/t @hyphenmagazine

#Boston”; “In other words Reddit was 99.9% wrong and was causing harm to numerous innocent

people: [link]”; and “Nice job Redditor assholes -- way too many episodes of 24!” Some even

blamed the media over Reddit, eagerly decrying news outlets like CNN for buying into Reddit’s

mistakes.: “RT @Selintifada: Revolting how the media ruined 22-year-old Sunil Tripathis life

after being named as a Boston bombing suspect. His body was found in river.”

Blame tended to be definitive, since squeezing nuance and qualifiers into 140 characters

presents a challenge. The only real counter to the blame-tweets were questions, and even those

tended to convey blame, asking Twitter who is at fault for the misidentification: “Shouldnt

Netizens apologise [sic] to Sunil Tripathis family for the trauma caused by linking him to Boston

case?”31 Ultimately, these questions add to the bigger picture: When we look at the messages,

we recognize that significant rhetorical elements, like lines of argument, choices of style, and

perceptions of the situation start to create a whole. In spite of changing dynamics, all of these

tweets, forming a constellation of reactions, served to blame someone or something for what had

transpired.

Quality 2: Jumping to Conclusions

In conjunction with blame, the desperation for a sense of certainty existed as a substantive category for the genre. Jumping to conclusions, people wanted to find some way to

27 alleviate the confusion and anxiety of not knowing; but nothing would clarify the situation as

quickly as people wanted. From the beginning of the investigation, people were willing to tweet

opinions and rumors as fact: “RIGHT NOW - BOSTON POLICE ARE IN PURSUIT OF

MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECT SUNIL TRIPATHI LAST SEEN NEAR PANERA

BREAD NEIGHBORHOOD. @bbc5live”; “@Enchanted_Acres yup. be safe my Boston peeps!

This kid Sunil Tripathi is still running around armed w/nothing to lose. #bostonmarathon #mit”

“Hey NY Post still looking for a front page for tomorrows paper? This missing Sunil Tripathi kid

as Boston suspect is right up your alley!”

So who exactly bought into these tweets and, more importantly, participated? An initial glance at age demographics reveals who Twitter users tend to be. A year before the bombing,

Pew determined that “Twenty-six percent of Internet users aged 18-29 use Twitter, which is

nearly double the rate for those aged 30-49.”32 Speaking generally, younger crowds have

different standards to govern what they will and will not say online compared to older

Americans. Declarative statements of position, even if they lack basis in facts, are perfectly

appropriate for social media forms like Twitter. In this context, tweets may be understood as much as an expression of momentary feeling and attitude as a coherent and well-considered argument. Clearly, though, that momentary feeling is powerful since it provides a sense of relief for the uncomfortable “not knowing” situation.

Similarly, we note that more well-known and trusted sources of information did not move at the speed of the online “investigation.” Boston natives and other big names like Mark

Wahlberg, Ben Affleck, and Chris Evans all spoke out on Twitter, their reactions mixed with horror and heartbreak. But celebrities didn’t engage in the play-by-play coverage of Reddit on

Twitter, so users instead turned to sources that would help them keep up with the “facts.” The

28 audience as a participant assumed the role of consumer in the breaking news environment.

People switched from Reddit to CNN to Twitter to and bought into it all. With fewer filters (as a result of constant status changes), users were enabled to become editors, not passive recipients, as they watched, listened, and shared news and stories.

However, not every tweet resounded at the same volume. Directness, all caps, and strong opinions that either praise or blame gained more attraction, especially with retweets, like “Oh

Jesus RT @nycjim: Officials say decision 2 release photos of suspects motivated in part to limit damage by Reddit.” Substantially, tweets connected with users when they proved enthymematic, insinuating either the powerful good or evil of social media. For users and for their audience, any bit of sensationalism further fueled the appetite for answers created within the genre. This fuel propelled a large-scale sprint to the “answers” provided by other Twitter users.

Quality 3: Visual Enthymeme

While blaming and jumping to conclusions involved intentional wording and expressed arguments, visual enthymeme acted as a digital shorthand. In this specific case, a visual enthymeme served as a simple but effective characteristic for how Twitter responds to certain types of crises. Its power is evident through objects and visuals; consequently, an image can take on so much more meaning. As the most pervasive example, “the white hat” evidenced the power of optics. Early on, the image of a man in a white hat led both Twitter and Reddit users to speculate on its wearer’s identity, with one user retweeting, “RT @prisco: Boston Globe claiming one suspect in custody. Guy in white backwards hat. I think that might be Sunil Tripathi missing Brown student” and another linking to the image, “RT @Travesham: A Boston-area

29 student named Sunil Tripathi disappeared without a trace a month ago. He looks familiar.

http://t.co/1DNPdC0FNx.” Quickly, the image of the man in the white hat grew to mean

Tripathi. @RaniaKhalek “shared the picture as proof of the second suspect on the run: Sunil

Tripathi missing Brown student. http://t.co/eVUZn7iYi5 Boston bombing suspect number 2

(white cap) http://t.co/FHq4zbORMj.”

Figure 2. The Notorious White Hat

Crowdsourcing help during times of crisis is believed to empower citizens to become

more situationally aware during disasters and to coordinate to help themselves or others.33 But

the images and data also led people to make their own opinions: “Just seen the pictures of the

Boston Marathon ordeal on Reddit. #sadworld #prayforboston #bostonmarathon”; “The things

Ive seen on Reddit from Boston today cant be unseen. Scarred for life”; “So many pictures of the

Boston Marathon victims being posted to Reddit. Bizarre how quickly news spreads”; “The

pictures on Reddit of the Boston marathon are hardcore.” Reinforced by the round-the-clock, repetitive coverage of CNN and other news outlets, these images ingrained themselves in the minds of both viewers and participants in the search. On one hand, the images could provide

30 comfort through the form of clarity, as people felt they were on the way to real answers. But

conversely, more violent images recalled other instances of terror, with 9/11 being the most

powerful in recent public memory. In this case, though, people weren’t limited to their TV

screens; they were able to contribute and “move the case along” by retweeting seemingly salient

images. The sense of involvement with even one shared message felt meaningful and thereby

encouraged participation, for better or for worse.

Discussion & Implications

Using the components of generic description, we can reflect on the genre today. The

tweets that perpetuated misinformation from Reddit subverted traditional journalistic decorum in

order to account for expectations of immediacy. That’s what their audience not only wanted but

felt entitled to. To be clear, there were still skeptical, cautious, and responsible voices on Twitter who both warned against and condemned the irresponsible behavior that led to unfortunate consequences. But the statements of blame thwarted attempts at journalistic ethics since so many pointed fingers at the Reddit and Twitter users who made the mistakes.

Here, the larger philosophy of human behavior is actually one of conflict; that is, people struggle with a new intersection of the digital and the social. We find solace in predictability and

certainty, as craving control is human nature. So the turn toward a sort of digital “civic

engagement” isn’t surprising; instead, the harsh condemnation of Reddit is what seems unusual.

Human behavior encountered conflict with immediacy and unregulated dissemination of “facts,”

in spite of our ephemeral faith in technology to step in and supersede traditional authorities’

efforts. Big media only exacerbated this false hope since it was the first time journalists had to

31 deal with the intersection of large news media and social media competition for the leader in

facts. When the need for orientation is high, we note desperate measures to reduce uncertainty.

This desperation reveals the why of our question of extremes. Once people know something for

“certain” — like the fact that Reddit “got it wrong” — they did what they knew and categorized them as blame-worthy.

In a context of terrorism post-9/11, people wanted to sort out the confusion quickly. Even

more, though, they wanted to punish the culprit for committing an act of terror on American soil.

Fusing the critical situation with the rhetorical object’s semantics and syntaxes, we realize the

genre’s organizing principle: “The community cannot understand fully the meaning of an event,

however, until it is placed within a context that aligns it with past experiences and the beliefs and

values that govern their understanding of such experiences. In order for the community to feel

comforted, restored, and unified after a disruptive experience, they must be given guidelines for

interpreting the experience.”34 Looking at these tweets through a generic perspective, we realize

that recreating and studying the original interaction between the authors and the audience isn’t

necessary; instead, we analyze the greater symbolic context in which the act emerged in order to

learn about human communication in this situation, shaped by culture and past formulations of

responses.

32 Chapter 3

Falling for the Ferguson Troll

I can’t believe my best friend just died in front of me. #AntonioMartin — @DesJuanTheThug

On December 24, 2014, at 11:22 p.m., @DesJuanTheThug’s tweet became the first gust in a Twitter whirlwind around #AntonioMartin when he said that his best friend had died right before his eyes. Earlier that night, just after 11:15 p.m., Antonio Martin had been shot and killed by a police officer at a gas station in Berkeley, Missouri. The Huffington Post chose to report on

Martin’s “best friend” as a key witness, but the supposed 18-year-old wasn’t actually there to see the police officer fatally shoot Martin. Instead, as we later learned, @DesJuanTheThug didn’t even know Martin -- he was just a troll5, posting inflammatory messages on Twitter for his own amusement. By the time the Huffington Post discovered the truth, it was too late. They had quoted the troll’s tweets as a firsthand account of the shooting, altering the overall narrative of the event with misinformation. The tweets from this Twitter deception (which occurred over the course of a mere six hours) portray particular characteristics unique to both crises and Twitter.

These discursive characteristics very similar to what we saw in the case of Chapter 2. Before I proceed with the analysis, however, I need to explain how and why the situation of this particular

5 As an internet slang term, a “troll” is a person who creates conflict online by posting incendiary, extraneous, or random messages in an online community setting, like Twitter. Trolls’ intent is to provoke readers into an emotional response, often just for their own amusement. “Troll" and its associated verb “trolling” are associated with internet discourse but have been used more widely: “Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe ‘a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families.’” Matt Toder, “Trolling: The Today Show Explores the Dark Side of the Internet,” Gawker, March 31, 2010, http://gawker.com/5506453/trolling-the-today-show-explores-the-dark-side-of-the-internet (accessed January 10, 2016).

33 crisis evolved in the manner that it did. That directs our attention to the history that preceded

Antonio Martin’s death.

Police Shootings & Black Male Teens

Twitter played a substantial role in the death of Antonio Martin, but what transpired on

Twitter also was influenced by a specific series of events that led up to it. Specifically, the

Twitter and news coverage of Antonio Martin’s situation were viewed against the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown the previous year in Ferguson. Michael Brown, another black male who was shot after a disputed altercation with a local police officer, died just two miles away from the spot where Martin was killed. In fact, since 2012, awareness of the tense and often hostile relations that exist between local police departments and African Americans

(particularly male) has increased on a national scale. Historian Heather Ann Thompson, a professor at who writes extensively on 20th-century urban politics and criminal justice, provides an explanation for this tension, especially in and around Ferguson: “St.

Louis has always had this very tortured racial history. In July of 1917, there was one of the most brutal riots against African Americans there… There were indiscriminate attacks and, in effect, lynchings… So the fact that St. Louis didn't erupt in the '60s is almost an anomaly or an outlying story. Because St. Louis does have very tense race relations between whites and blacks, and also between the police and the black community.”35

Thompson’s words ring true for the case of Michael Brown. On Saturday, August 9,

2013, Brown was walking in the middle of Canfield Drive with his friend, Dorian Johnson.

Surveillance footage depicted Brown stealing cigarillos from a local convenience store,

34 prompting police officer Darren Wilson to intervene. At 12:01 p.m., Officer Wilson ordered the

pair to move onto the sidewalk. Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson claimed that a physical

struggle ensued between Brown and Officer Wilson, leaving the officer with a swollen face.36

Officer Wilson ultimately shot Brown at least six times. Within minutes, Brown, who was

unarmed, died from his gunshot wounds. Residents rushed out of their apartments when they

heard the shots, and one man recorded a video. In the video, a woman shouts, “Where is the

ambulance? Where is the ambulance?” In spite of the outcry, Brown’s body lay in the street for

several hours.37

The New York Times reported that “one person who claimed to witness the shooting

began posting frantic messages on Twitter, written hastily with shorthand and grammatical

errors.” At 12:03 p.m., the person identified as @TheePharoah, a St. Louis-area rapper, wrote on

Twitter that he had just seen someone die and was about to hyperventilate. Twenty minutes later,

@TheePharoah tweeted, “dude was running and the cops just saw him. I saw him die bruh.” The tweets sparked Twitter outrage and discussion that lasted well beyond the trial. Ferguson stood on the national stage as protests dissolved into riots and looting. Coverage of the case and the fallout lasted for well over a year. Thompson emphasizes the greater significance of the

Americans’ reactions and reporting from traditional news media:

We start the war on crime in 1965, which, of course, is very much in response to these urban rebellions. Because politicians decide that protests against things like police brutality are exactly the same thing as crime — that this is disorderly. This is criminal. And so, police are specifically charged with keeping order and with stopping crime, which has now become synonymous with black behavior in the streets. The police, again, become that entity that polices black boundaries … One of the most striking things about the media coverage of Ferguson is that they are absolutely doing

35 what they did in the 1960s in terms of the reporting: “This is all about the looters, this is all about black violence.”38

A year later, Antonio Martin’s case seemed to parallel Brown’s on multiple planes: the white police officer, the delay of Emergency Medical Services, subsequent protests, and the tweets from eyewitnesses. According to police, they first received a call about shoplifting at a

Mobil gas station at 11:11 p.m., with an officer arriving on the scene and confronting Martin – who police said matched the description of the suspected shoplifter – at 11:14p.m.39 Berkeley

Mayor Theodore Hoskins told reporters that surveillance video appeared to show Martin pointing

a gun at an officer in a gas station parking lot in Berkeley right before the officer fatally shot the

teen.40

The Associated Press provided further details for the incident:

County police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schellman says a Berkeley police officer was conducting a routine business check at a gas station around 11:15 p.m. Tuesday when he saw two men and approached them. Schellman says one of the men pulled a handgun and pointed it at the officer. The officer fired several shots, striking and fatally wounding the man. Schellman says that the second person fled and that the deceased man's handgun has been recovered.

The officer involved in the shooting owned a body camera, but he was not wearing it during the

shooting. St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar speculated that the officer was distracted

when a supervisor gave him the camera earlier Tuesday, and that could be why it went unused.41

Additionally, the cruiser’s dashboard camera was not recording because its emergency lights had

not activated. These key facts only fueled the Twitter frenzy to figure out what happened.

36 Tweets from the Troll

Minutes after the shooting, @DesJuanTheThug tweeted that the officer had pulled a gun on both of the boys and ordered them to get on the ground. When Martin resisted, the officer fired his weapon “right in front of” @DesJuanTheThug. The Huffington Post Associate Editor

Sebastian Murdock contacted @DesJuanTheThug for further comment, but Martin’s supposed friend refused to speak over the phone. Instead, Murdock vetted @DesJuanTheThug via Twitter direct messages, reporting the story based on their brief

Figure 3. Screenshot of Huffington Post Deleted Article

37 interaction. In the hunt for an eyewitness, journalists and social media users who followed the

story took note: @DesJuanTheThug was retweeted over 2,000 times.42

Figure 4. The Troll's Big Reveal

At 4:34 a.m., @DesJuanTheThug changed his story. He admitted he was not a credible source and blamed The Huffington Post for believing him.43 But Murdock had reported the troll’s

tweets as eyewitness testimony, exposing millions of Huffington Post readers and Twitter users

to false information.44

Figure 5. Sebastian Murdock's Apology

The following night, after protestors shut down the freeway near the site of the shooting,

St. Louis police responded with a news conference, issuing the following statement from Mayor

Hoskins: “Protest should be peaceful, and we understand the constitution. There is no reason for

the protesters to continue in the city of Berkeley unless they will not accept the fact that Mr.

38 Martin drew his gun first. We can only present the facts, and if they do not believe in that, that’s on them. The city of Berkeley will not tolerate what occurred last night.”45 Hoskin’s use of the word “facts” is critical here. Reporting the facts in 2016 becomes increasingly complex with new media technology and society’s ever-growing expectation for immediacy. While they aren’t commonplace, cases of misinformation can impact media portrayals of violence and societal perceptions of specific events. But this case also provides evidence for the existence of specific generic characteristics of discourse that emerged on Twitter immediately after the event.

Repeated Characteristics of Genre

For this chapter, I’ve chosen the Antonio Martin case over the Michael Brown case for two reasons: 1) Martin’s death occurred after Brown’s death and subsequent verdict, so the narrative of “white cop, black teen” had been more clearly established by late 2014; 2) the

Martin case is smaller in scope, which makes analyzing the rhetorical choices on Twitter more feasible. I also chose to look at the tweets that posted within twelve hours of the shooting, since uncertainty peaked in this timeframe. In this period, the characteristics that appeared in the online interactions were blaming, jumping to conclusions, and employing a visual enthymeme.

We can study these characteristics by analyzing at the tweets closely.

Quality 1: Blaming

Once again, the tendency to assign blame remained a key factor amid the uncertainty of a crisis. In the hours after the shooting, images from the surveillance cameras revealed little concrete information. Nonetheless, while the entire situation remained murky at best, users took

39 sides, often against the police: “Every statement the police release has new lies in it. Do they think we weren't watching? @stackizshort thanks for the work. #AntonioMartin,” “Another black man dead by those fucking Pigs I cant believe it #AntonioMartin They R doing it deliberately coz they can get away wit it,”46 and “Next time a cop is killed I suggest we don't show any sympathy #AntonioMartin was denied CPR and EMS I don't condone murder or

‘SUFFRING.’”47 This anger seemed to stem from a mistrust of local police, especially in the delayed treatment of Martin after the shooting. From the tragically familiar history behind the event, it appeared that many users viewed the shooting as an intentional, racially motivated murder.

From blaming the police, some users moved to a larger condemnation of the justice system as a whole. Outrage over the officer’s body and dash cameras became a main dimension to blaming both the authorities and the system. One user, @Breezy2345, wrote, “So the Body

Cam was off and the Dash Cam wasn't activated. So two opportunities to see what happened but no footage? #AntonioMartin.” Another, @Jazz__Berry said, “#AntonioMartin another black teen killed by police in an unjust situation. Jesus Christ. Officer has two cameras, both conveniently off? Ugh.” And @Pete_TheKiller went as far as to say, “#BodyCameras count for nothing.

FIRE. ALL. COPS. Indict The System.” With both cameras off, people who already were wary of the police had the chance to blame this police officer for purposefully disregarding the cameras that were meant to impose more transparent law enforcement. The tweets revealed just how tense relations were between local police and the African American community in St. Louis, and on a national scale, people connected this instance to a larger conflict of race relations.

Because old narratives of injustice appeared to apply to this instance as well, people were able to blame “with a wider brush” since they believed that an entire system was at fault.

40 But people on the other side of this debate also had fingers to point. Instead of taking

issue with the police in general, some blamed Martin for his own demise and condemned anyone

who supported him: “If you defend #AntonioMartin you're blind. He pointed a gun at a cop, I

hope people don't think that is okay. Appropriate use of force.”48 Even more forcefully,

@thejaylacashatt deduced, “You point a gun to an armed police officer and you're going to get

shot. PERIOD. #AntonioMartin it's common sense.” In blaming Martin over the police officer,

users drew a clear line between right and wrong. From their vantage, the situation was made clear: the police officer was in the right. And, with that line established, this group showed no

sympathy for Martin because he was in the wrong – end of story.

While the line of right and wrong defined the moral situation for many, blame clearly

served to divide people along racial lines as well. In a moment when this community should have

come together to fix a pressing problem, blaming those with different views exacerbated fraught

relations. For some, blame served to satiate the social appetite for a restored order, but at what

cost? With this case already so contentious, Twitter allowed people to “act together” to punish

the offenders(s). But for those same people who picked sides, they were only able to do this on

one half of the blame division, reinforcing a sense of belonging to only one viewpoint, pushing

the extremes even wider apart, making a local and national issue even harder to resolve.

Quality 2: Jumping to Conclusions

Due to the lack of clear coverage of the shooting, many Twitter users drew conclusions from small bits of information or tiny pieces of the whole story. At least initially, people interpreted the event as yet another example of police violence against the African American

41 community. For those individuals who believed that this community was prone to crime and that the police were often in danger, the response was to support the police; for those on Twitter who sympathized with the black community, the initial reaction was to blame the police. Toward the beginning of the night, the existence of Martin’s gun and the lack of EMS emerged as two trending topics and points of debate. The grainy, distant footage of Martin, his friend, and the police officer interacting provides little evidence of whether Martin brandished a gun or not, even after multiple views. However, what might have been expressed as sheer speculation about the video spread quickly as truth. @LeftSentThis concluded, “I've watched the #AntonioMartin surveillance footage, I saw no gun, I saw no crime, and I'd raise my hand if a gun was pointed at me.” From the footage, this user and many others leapt to the conclusion: “no gun, no crime.”

This mental jump is not necessarily problematic, but, here, the logic develops from inconclusive

evidence. The desire to set things straight, to align this story with the other stories that had been

categorized in this way by other media sources, drove people to make these jumps together.

Apart from the gun alone, other users fixated on the EMS following the shooting.

@yayayarndiva questioned, “A lot of focus on the GUN...where is the focus on the lack of

EMS/paramedic/ER-Trauma transport for #AntonioMartin.” But others followed this point to

draw their own conclusions: “@alexthorson5 So if #AntonioMartin was shot and no parametric

came to the scene, doesn't that make it homicide? Isn't the city of berkeley, mo liable?” and

“@keepittaylored I dont care wat he did I dont care if he had a gun all I care bout is they refused

2 call an ambulance while his mother cried #AntonioMartin.” By focusing on the lack of EMS

on the scene, these users jumped to the conclusion that the authorities were more at fault than the

teenager was.

42 Regardless of the truth, the outcome revealed little sense of nuance. Instead, what

surfaced were users’ strong feelings of faith in or disdain for the police. For some, mistrust in law enforcement became the definitional shorthand when they felt as if they had “seen this all before.” Moreover, this led to the assumption that the police were “at it again” before the facts were confirmed. The temptation to leap to conclusions grew too appealing for some, wanting the dust to settle and normalcy to return. Still, tweets like these contributed to the inconsistent and shifting accounts of the shooting.

Quality 3: Visual Enthymeme

Figure 6. Gas Station Footage Still

As a supplement to the other two characteristics, the use of visual enthymeme reduced a

complex, historical situation into simple images. These images attested to the human need to

43 make a coherent story out of the scraps of information they possess. Arguably, the still from the footage of the shooting outside the gas station shows nothing. However, paired with a caption, this image seemed to support the caption’s claim; with the desire to define the situation, people may have found the picture of the footage to be “meaningful,” even though it didn’t corroborate what the captioned words said in a clear way. No gun appeared in the tweeted image, but the caption still

Figure 7. Conspiracy Theories Abounding

seemed stronger with the image attached, like an additional source. Conversely, people were

quick to use these images to argue for a larger conspiracy at play. Taking identical stills from the

surveillance footage, Twitter users invented their own ideas about what happened. Without

footage from the dash or body cameras, this lone video from the gas station became that much

44 more significant. Especially for those who were suspicious of the authorities from the beginning,

the visual enthymeme’s assumption that “they lied to us again” had a strong effect on Twitter.

Figure 8. Christmas Eve Tragi-Comic

Over the course of the night, the images that became the most popular were also the most

political. Using the fact that the shooting occurred on Christmas Eve, one meme that referenced

Santa went viral. By commenting on the history of violence between white police officers and

black teens, this particular image applied the Martin case to the bigger picture. With the small

African American boy walking away in tears, Santa cries that “all” of the young African

American males want bulletproof vests for fear of becoming “another” name on the death by

police shooting list. Even the message within the quoted tweet protests, “Not another.” Among the frenzied Twitter discourse, the image made dissent difficult, since it is challenging to argue

against all of claims combined here. In this way, the visual enthymeme served its purpose as a tool for definition, to “clear up” a confusing, albeit tragic, situation.

45

Figure 9. Appropriating the Most Interesting Man in the World

However, the Christmas Eve meme wasn’t the only image to collect several assumptions in one place. The Patriot Post, the “Voice of Essential Liberty,” made this meme using a famous ad from Dos Equis. “The Most Interesting Man in the World” has been an advertising campaign for the Dos Equis brand of beer in the United States since 2006 and has become a popular internet meme, especially on Reddit and Tumblr. The first adaptation of the meme to police violence was actually in reference to the ruling in the Michael Brown case, but Twitter users applied its stated conclusion to condemn the people who protested and eventually rioted after the

Antonio Martin shooting. Coming from a conspicuously partisan source, the instance of visual enthymeme defined the situation in a way that supported the views of its intended audience.

Individuals who clearly did not favor Martin and his supporters. In this way, the enthymeme reinforced the stance against protestors and for the authorities by using familiar elements (the popular TV ad, the emphasis on “liberty”) that appealed to those who were uncomfortable with

46 the increased scrutiny of police and cases of discriminatory policing. In such a thoroughly

politicized debate, these images all provided shorthand arguments that served their social,

rhetorical purposes.

Discussion & Implications

In the last chapter, I argued that users on Twitter focused on blaming the online

community, like Redditors and other people who retweeted misinformation, as more facts came

to light during the following week. This time, however, the shooting, the troll’s lie, the “mis”-

coverage, and the subsequent Twitter discourse all occurred within the length of an average

night’s sleep. In this case, people took blame to further extremes by faulting Antonio Martin, the

officer, “the system,” racial tensions and politics in the United States. While these users wanted so many different outcomes, ultimately, the goal of this communication was a sense of relief from uncertainty. Particularly in a context where people have little agency over authorities,

Twitter became a platform for community discourse about a recurring local problem. But this discourse also provided something for those outside of the local community, for those watching and waiting to hear updates. Because the incident didn’t impact only those directly involved -- other people had a stake in these events since the larger context spans nation-wide. Perhaps the general public’s ability to participate in this discourse (and debate) made the extremes of blame more drastic since people with different viewpoints, from different places, had a say in the definitional process on Twitter.

That said, the decisions to identify a guilty party and argue sides were not ill-intended.

Indeed, while the communication choices were not necessarily “good,” they were, in fact,

47 purposeful. The generic characteristics of this discourse reveal how even hasty, messy rhetorical

choices served specific social functions within a highly emotional, highly debated social issue.

Much like many of the other cases of police shootings of young black men, cut-and-dry facts remained to be seen after Martin’s death. But, on Twitter, the sense of shaping the national narrative surrounding felt effective to many because of the interactions among users. Even one retweet can be perceived as support. Especially in this case, “acting together” helped to move past the crisis, at least for the Twitter community.

48 Chapter 4

Understanding Critical Twitter Discourse as a Genre

In my introduction, I explained the notion of digital dualism, which perceives a disconnect between the physical and digital worlds. Through social media, human goals and their outcomes transcend the concepts of “online” or “offline” as users interact. Ultimately, this project illustrates how that dualism fails to exist. The “digital” encompasses real people with real stories, feelings, and bodies. Recognizing this fact helps to explain why we see repeated attempts to satisfy social needs on Twitter. With its scope and sense of community, the platform enables specific social functions that other social media do not. Bonnie Stewart, an academic who studies digital networks, describes the site today: “Now, it’s just Twitter. It’s a space where all contexts are collapsed and all ideas can be mob-amplified or end up pulled for a Buzzfeed article…

Twitter’s affordances still render it powerful—but that very power and capacity to curry visibility, both within its own space and within broader media spaces, also render it challenging.”49 Stewart acknowledges some of the hurdles Twitter poses, such as the occasional mob-mentality. Clearly, Twitter is not the perfect place for critical discourse, but which platform is? For us to fulfill the social functions that crises necessitate, like assigning blame and defining situations, we continue to turn to, and often rely on Twitter.

Important Generic Themes

Reflecting on Twitter’s impact and the two cases presented in this study, we can interpret the significance of the generic qualities on a larger scale. One aspect of the blaming function of

Twitter is that it often takes aim at individuals and institutions that were not responsible for the

49 original crisis. Almost as if blame spreads the responsibility around, individuals who had nothing

to do with the initial catalyst of the crisis tend to be implicated. We see this trend instantiated by

the witch hunt for Sunil Tripathi, but also by other examples, like naming Ryan Lanza the Sandy

Hook shooter instead of Adam Lanza. When allegations are made, it can be tempting to share them with a simple retweet. But sharing on Twitter has real consequences. Moreover, the blame directed at larger institutions spreads quickly. For instance, the “system” was blamed regularly after the shooting of Antonio Martin. The system has been indicted in countless instances on

Twitter, like the Flint water crisis and different mass shootings. By spreading the blame in this way, no real problem is solved. Rather, fulfilling the social function of identifying and punishing the party that has been made guilty becomes the desired goal. Whether or not that act of blame makes things better is not always clear.

With this willingness to blame, people also seem much more willing to make assumptions when a narrative has been established previously. This finding may seem obvious, but the function of jumping to conclusions becomes more powerful on Twitter because users are able to reference prior hashtags and stories with a click. Considering the Martin case, the continuity of the police/unarmed African American narrative enabled people on both sides of the argument to come to their own conclusions using deductive reasoning, but without much evidence. However, that tendency to assume and accept an answer is not limited to the shooting

in Berkeley, Missouri. Clearly, many Twitter users have referenced incidents like the deaths of

Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Walter Scott. When people form these opinions, “utterances

are ... treated as unequivocal political statements by people outside the conversation. Because

there’s a kind of sensationalistic value in interpreting someone’s chattiness in partisan terms,

tweets ‘are taken up as magnum opi to be leapt upon and eviscerated, not only by ideological

50 opponents or threatened employers but by in-network peers.’”50 This sensationalism takes flight

during crises since the situation is heightened already, and people are drawn to “newsworthy”

updates. As users tweet their takes on the situation, those with similar views tend to glom on.

Connecting with others offers a sense of comfort as well as clarity to a critical time, in spite of

being “right” or “wrong.” With this sense, the communication service serves as users’ news

aggregator and crisis coping mechanism.

Above all, Twitter’s capacity to be the “great equalizer” becomes its most revealing

characteristic; that is, the agency that Twitter affords its users compels many of the responses to

crises. Speaking generally, people want to be a part of the solution, to help regain a sense of

normalcy. In both of the cases, Twitter users didn’t just want the authorities to solve the cases

faster. They wanted to be the authorities. And, on this platform, they felt as if they were. Stewart

confirms, “Twitter is … a path to voice.”51 Equipping people with not only a voice but a

microphone that can amplify their words, Twitter encourages participation, even with the simple

“like” of a tweet. The consumer-participant role that Twitter users play becomes especially

important in the dissemination of breaking news.

For many Americans, tracking the news takes place from dawn to dusk, as information

spans constantly across increasingly different formats, devices, and technologies. Twenty-four

hour major news networks remain the top news providers, even for Americans with the most

gadgets. However, as people have adapted their news discovery methods following technological

advances, the issue of trust has remained pivotal. As of fall 2015, public trust in news sources

was polled at an all-time low.52 The Gallup poll highlights how younger Americans are less likely than older to trust the media. Moving forward, this lack of trust from the main users of

Twitter will be significant. More and more, users may be inclined to favor someone they follow

51 over traditional media outlets. What this means for major news networks remains to be seen, but

with the greater agency that Twitter provides, connecting with others in moments of crisis will

continue to offer a sense of comfort as well as clarity.

So Where Do We Go From Here?

To speculate about this genre and its significance to us moving forward, we are left to ask: Can Twitter be used positively to meet these social needs? Considering the generic qualities of Twitter, I contend that the platform can meet social needs and functions more effectively; that said, I cannot guarantee that it will be used in that way. Just because I didn’t see constructive, nuanced dialogue in these specific cases doesn’t mean it can’t happen at some point.

Realistically, that type of dialogue may have occurred following a major event, and I simply missed it. Regardless, Twitter responses to crises are changing already. Keep in mind, the events

I examined took place in 2013 and 2014. Two years in technological terms is a lifetime. For an example of a more recent response to a crisis, we can address the terrorist attacks in Paris on

November 13, 2015. Of course, people still identified the blameworthy parties and obsessed over news updates until the situation became clearer. However, on the whole, the tweets about the attacks were made more responsibly than in the past; they didn’t jump to as many conclusions and perpetuate those conclusions as fact. Similar themes like terrorism contributed to the overall narrative, but, in general, people did not engage in the misinformation spread on the same level of prior events.

Just as people took years to use Twitter as they do today, I think people are still learning to improve how they process the information inundation in a responsible way. Recalling the

52 inceptive stages of Twitter, Robinson Meyer recognizes a shift in the way we regard the service:

“At some point early last year, the standard knock against Twitter—which had long ceased to be

‘I don’t want to know what someone’s eating for lunch’—became ‘I don’t want everyone to see what I have to say.’”53 In this realization, Meyer acknowledges that he has little proof to support

this claim, but he is right that, at least in a sense of overall “feel,” Twitter has become less

ephemeral. Tweets stick with us, come back to bite us, gain widespread recognition, and, most

importantly, affect others. The implications for communication on Twitter in this way are

significant:

What we learn when we learn a genre is not just a pattern of forms or even a method of achieving our own ends. We learn, more importantly, what ends we may have: we learn that we may eulogize, apologize, recommend one person to another, instruct customers on behalf of a manufacturer, take on an official role, account for progress in achieving goals. We learn to understand better the situations in which we find ourselves and the potentials for failure and success in acting together.54

As quickly as it came about, the Twitter genre of crisis rhetoric can dissolve or change

beyond recognition. But this critical discourse is worth looking at for now, because its generic

qualities offer us a powerful reflection of our fundamental social needs and the ways we “act

together” to meet them, for good or for ill. This does not mean that the present genre won’t

evolve into a different, better genre: “As a recurrent, significant action, a genre embodies an

aspect of cultural rationality. For the critic, genres can serve both as an index to cultural patterns

and as tools for exploring the achievements of particular speakers and writers; for the student, genres serve as keys to understanding how to participate in the actions of a community.”55

Genres matter because they inform our rhetorical choices, whether we’re aware of them or not.

As our society grows and paradigms shift, our discourse reflects those changes. Still, there is no

53 real evidence to argue how or when or even if it will evolve; just as we look for updates and refresh our timelines for more tweets, we’ll have to wait and see.

54

Appendix

#BostonBombing

The following tweets were collected by Nick LaLone and analyzed for sentiment in “Run

Amok: Group Crowd Participation in Identifying the Bomb and Bomber from the Boston

Marathon Bombing.” Here, though, they provide a compelling range of the rhetorical extremes that followed the bombing.

Time Tweeted Tweet Data

So this Sunil Tripathi kid disappears on March 16 leaving ID CC etc. behind 4/19/13 1:02 bombings in Boston on April 15 and he favors suspect #2. :(

@YourAnonNews Sunil Tripathi the missing Brown Univ. student looks awfully 4/19/13 1:08 close to the Boston Marathon bombing suspect in the white hat!

RT @Travesham: A Boston-area student named Sunil Tripathi disappeared without 4/19/13 2:15 a trace a month ago. He looks familiar. http://t.co/1DNPdC0FNx

RT @_weshull: Boston Bomber suspect is missing person Sunil Tripathi 4/19/13 2:44 http://t.co/vX3JpU1maU

It sure looks like missing Ivy Leaguer Sunil Tripathi is Boston bomber suspect #2. 4/19/13 4:09 Try not to hate on the guy until its confirmed though. A look at suspect #2 & missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi. Students say he 4/19/13 4:23 was last seen w/ long hair #Boston http://t.co/1boUPe6tEp

Hey NY Post still looking for a front page for tomorrows paper? This missing Sunil 4/19/13 4:49 Tripathi kid as Boston suspect is right up your alley!

RT @ashleymatt: Could it be Sunil Tripathi? Take a look at @kmattio s twitter 4/19/13 5:17 feed starting about 2 hours ago. #fbi #boston https://t.co/GX1w5jotRE

@Jack_McCollom guy who did boston marathon is the one who killed the cop 4/19/13 5:54 today. Sunil Tripathi is 1 and they have the other in custody

55

4/19/13 6:40 I know who suspect #2 is from the Boston Marathon Bombings... Sunil Tripathi RT @prisco: Boston Globe claiming one suspect in custody. Guy in white 4/19/13 6:41 backwards hat. I think that might be Sunil Tripathi missing Brown student.

4/19/13 6:55 @MiamiRadioBeast boston police scanner identified a name as Sunil Tripathi RT @SG_Mizzou15: released the names of the suspects: 4/19/13 6:55 Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi. Tripathi was the missing student from Brown. BPD scanner has identified the names of alleged marathon bombers: Suspect 1: 4/19/13 6:56 Mike Mulugeta Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi #Boston #MIT

Holy shit. RT @bruce_arthur: Sunil Tripathi is this guy: http://t.co/QvFTXatNvJ 4/19/13 6:58 Reddit had http://t.co/AvLR1N03wB

RT @Anon_Central: BPD scanner has identified the names : Suspect 1: Mike 4/19/13 6:58 Mulugeta Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi. #Boston #MIT

RT @texashsfootball: RT @AdamZLawson: The Boston police scanner names Suspect 2 Sunil Tripathi the kid that has been missing from Brown University since 4/19/13 6:58 March.

According to #Boston police scanner suspect 2 is Sunil Tripathi the suspect Reddit 4/19/13 6:58 purposed hours ago. http://t.co/naYzxhU1KT #watertown

Sunil Tripathi (Boston suspect) is the subject of a missing persons case so peculiar 4/19/13 6:59 that the FBI was heavily involved. Thats not common.

Here is the Reddit thread regarding Sunil Tripathi the missing Brown Univ. student. 4/19/13 6:59 http://t.co/0HwPUooOCA So this is apparently Boston suspect number 2 Sunil Tripathi 4/19/13 7:01 http://t.co/dYb9ppfPXM

@SeanMurphy77 RT bruce_arthur Sunil Tripathi is this guy: 4/19/13 7:01 http://t.co/JeYVWVS2cP Reddit had http://t.co/pVa9hLTvV4

Youtube video of Sunil Tripathi fam (suspect in Boston bombings) begging him to 4/19/13 7:02 come home. Gone for a month. Wow. http://t.co/hcV7kNyEh7

RT @RaniaKhalek: Sunil Tripathi missing Brown student. http://t.co/eVUZn7iYi5 4/19/13 7:02 Boston bombing suspect number 2 (white cap) http://t.co/FHq4zbORMj RT @RT_America: BREAKING: Unconfirmed reports that missing Brown student 4/19/13 7:03 Sunil Tripathi has been linked by authorities to Watertown & Boston incidents

56

RT @BernardKingIII: WOW: Article from this afternoon showing 4Chan identified Sunil Tripathi hours after FBI released photo @BecketAdams 4/19/13 7:03 http://t.co/HhUmKgCVyP RT @SeanTuohey: Boston Police identify suspect as missing Brown student Sunil 4/19/13 7:03 Tripathi. Family (presumably) removed Facebook page shortly after MIT shooting

Scanner identified the names : Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi. 4/19/13 7:04 #Boston #MIT #watertown

@slpbty2472 Boston PD said it over the scanner named both suspects... Mike 4/19/13 7:05 Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi

All these photos of Sunil Tripathi suspect 2 of Boston bombing he was loved. 4/19/13 7:06 http://t.co/w5mdh8suhy BOMBING SUSPECTS NAMED! MT @KallMeKG: BPD identified SUSPECT 4/19/13 7:08 names: 1)Mike Mulugeta 2)Sunil Tripathi. #mit #mitshooting #boston

Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi: The Boston Bombers: One of the Boston 4/19/13 7:08 bombers was announced as Mike Mulugeta... http://t.co/gjg7QR9yVs

If the second suspect in real turns out to b an Indian namely Sunil tripathi this will 4/19/13 7:10 get messy as time progress for India. #Boston

Check this out: Sunil Tripathi disappeared on the 16th. A week later this happens 4/19/13 7:10 in Hanover http://t.co/QOIOkSdnHV

Now the conspiracy is that the FBI knew Sunil Tripathi was a potential terrorist and 4/19/13 7:11 tried to apprehend him at Boston Marathon. According to police scanners Boston bombing Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta & 4/19/13 7:13 Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi the missing brown university student

RIGHT NOW - BOSTON POLICE ARE IN PURSUIT OF MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECT SUNIL TRIPATHI LAST SEEN NEAR PANERA BREAD 4/19/13 7:13 NEIGHBORHOOD. @bbc5live

RT @az9thdstrct: Multiple articles from Brown Daily Herald over past weeks 4/19/13 7:14 regarding possible Boston Bomber suspect Sunil Tripathi http://t.co/wy2ejShDQ4 RT @p.m.oharper: Just waiting for Mike Mulugetas & Sunil Tripathis 4/19/13 7:14 Facebook pages to be tweeted before calling it a night #Boston

57 Left is pic released by FBI of suspect right is pic from now deleted Help Us Find 4/19/13 7:15 Sunil Tripathi FB page. #Boston http://t.co/gwne13UqHs RT @sal19: Left is pic released by FBI of suspect right is pic from now deleted 4/19/13 7:17 Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi FB page. #Boston http://t.co/i9J1FEEBZE

@JamesFallows Boston Globe story about missing Sunil Tripathi. 4/19/13 7:17 http://t.co/1zXzKFWDIs RT @Truthbuster: Google images for the missing Brown student Sunil Tripathi 4/19/13 7:17 http://t.co/4zOoozc1wp look lvery much ike the white-cap #Boston bomber #p2 confirmed that Sunil Tripathi was one of the suspects in both this MIT shooting and 4/19/13 7:18 Boston Bombing this is fucking crazy Sunil Tripathi 22-year-old philosophy major is one if the #Boston Bombers 4/19/13 7:18 http://t.co/oX7BSZ9Xf3 http://t.co/tZKlMayXKA RT @sal19: Left is pic released by FBI of suspect right is pic from now deleted 4/19/13 7:22 Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi FB page. #Boston http://t.co/i9J1FEEBZE @AbouDjaffar Sunil Tripathi whos being identified as Suspect 2 in the Boston 4/19/13 7:23 bombing was reported missing last month http://t.co/yA1i7u9fNz @BillyCorben: Boston Police ID Suspect 2 as Brown University student Sunil 4/19/13 7:23 Tripathi missing for about a month: http://t.co/QrgW4tUDvT Is missing student Sunil Tripathi Boston Marathon bomber No. 2? 4/19/13 7:25 http://t.co/NWylDmlwXb Boston Bombing Suspect Arrested; Could Be Missing Ivy League Student Sunil 4/19/13 7:26 Tripathi http://t.co/KtOTkBj9YH via @newzarnow @AbbyMartin The university said the search has expanded outside of Providence 4/19/13 7:28 to include Boston(for Sunil Tripathi) http://t.co/e9GBVfKKXE

Just to be clear Sunil Tripathi is not an Islamic nor arabic name. #Boston #islam 4/19/13 7:28 #islamophobia

RT @biancaleriska: Before any Islamophobes start going crazy Sunil Tripathi is a 4/19/13 7:30 Hindu name not a Muslim name. (Yestheres a difference). #Watertown #Boston RT @TradeDesk_Steve: Boston suspects named as Sunil Tripathi and Mike Mulugeta. The first one has been missing for some time and left a note with 4/19/13 7:31 suicidal intent @Enchanted_Acres yup. be safe my Boston peeps! This kid Sunil Tripathi is still 4/19/13 7:31 running around armed w/nothing to lose. #bostonmarathon #mit Yup it looks like #Boston Bomber Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi (missing Brown 4/19/13 7:33 student) just arrested in #Watertown : http://t.co/RwuzjYgd38

58

4/19/13 7:35 Is Boston suspect someone Sunil Tripathi?any update with anyone? #attackwatch BOSTON POLICE SCANNER NAMES MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECTS: FBI Sunil Tripathi (left) a... http://t.co/wX7nD439LW 4/19/13 7:36 @BrianBrownNet One of the Boston marathon bombing suspects is Sunil Tripathi a missing Brown 4/19/13 7:37 University student (reportedly) re: Sunil Tripathi - Read the line about cooking and insert the phrase bomb making 4/19/13 7:37 http://t.co/Dv9B3lgW4h @jacksonh_91 Sunil Tripathi and #Suspect2 from the Boston Marathon bombing 4/19/13 7:38 gif #JustLook http://t.co/YOgb1n2yaR RT @robynd323: UPDATE: Sunil Tripathi was said to be 6 tall. #Boston Police are 4/19/13 7:39 on the hunt for Sunil. Hes Bomber #2 Suspect http://t.co/dIvNmDngw7 @probablytrippy: #disclaimer - i am not related to sunil tripathi in any way 4/19/13 7:44 #boston. Funny. Hmm.. Will we see Mike Mulugeta or Sunil Tripathi on a list of arrests in Boston 4/19/13 7:45 from October 9th to 13th 2011? Im looking for it. RT @abbieheppe: Omg Sunil Tripathi is the bombing suspect in Boston?!?! I went 4/19/13 7:47 k-12 with his sister...wtf RT @RaniaKhalek: Totally different face shapes: Sunil Tripathi http://t.co/eVUZn7iYi5 Boston bombing suspect number 2 (white cap) 4/19/13 7:50 http://t.co/YlrxI9mTjA Missing @BrownUniversity student Sunil Tripathi IDd as Boston Marathon 4/19/13 7:51 bomber http://t.co/TqLd3nyutH #childkiller

4/19/13 7:53 Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi... Masterminds of d Boston bombing! RT @Team_Heat305: Sunil Tripathi involved in boston marathon bomb and involved with what happened at #Watertown Twitter and Reddit break news faster 4/19/13 7:53 than TV. RT @samir__11: dese left wingers r highly dangerous RT â€Â@kyle_rogers76 4/19/13 7:54 Man identified as a suspect by Boston PD Sunil Tripathi is a left-wing Marxist Indian ? RT @RT_com: #BostonMarathon bombing suspects identified on police 4/19/13 7:56 scanner as Mike Mulugeta Sunil Tripathi http://t.co/1EDZFSIqK4 Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi are the Fucking Animals Responsible for the 4/19/13 7:56 Boston Bombings! Blow off their Legs & Let Them DIE in PAIN! RT @robynd323: UPDATE: Sunil Tripathi was said to be 6 tall. #Boston Police are 4/19/13 7:58 on the hunt for Sunil. Hes Bomber #2 Suspect http://t.co/dIvNmDngw7 apparently sunil tripathi has been on academic leave from brown and has been 4/19/13 8:00 fighting depression http://t.co/E40SdQmznQ #boston #MIT

59 One of the alleged Boston Bombers is Sunil Tripathi from Radnor PA. He was the 4/19/13 8:02 Brown university studen... http://t.co/l4Vv8Gj1Nx #Reddit @chris17lim: One of the suspects of the #Boston bombing has been identified as 4/19/13 8:07 Sunil Tripathi. Heres to 50 more years of racial profiling. So the two suspects in the #Boston and #Watertown incidents are named Mike 4/19/13 8:09 Mulugeta Sunil Tripathi. They dont sound like Muslim names RT Chilling not sure bout bomb tho The 8 year old boy that was killed & Sunil 4/19/13 8:13 Tripathi appear in the same picture. http://t.co/c34fiJ37aH Rampage: Boston Marathon suspects Mike Mulugeta and Sunil Tripathi in late- 4/19/13 8:17 night crime spree gunfight chase http://t.co/JyDvzFjI17 Mike Mulugeta & Sunil Tripathi show how dangerous multi cultivate Ivy 4/19/13 8:20 League hippie students/faculty are #Boston @Lilith831 but umm: Boston Police Commissioner has confirmed that black hat 4/19/13 8:24 suspect is dead. whit hat Sunil Tripathi AT LARGE RT @AriDavidUSA: Mike Mulugeta & Sunil Tripathi show how dangerous 4/19/13 8:24 multi cultivate Ivy League hippie students/faculty are #Boston Yup it looks like #Boston Bomber Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi (missing Brown 4/19/13 8:24 student) was just arrested in #Watertown http://t.co/uBR2CiMq37 Really hoping Sunil Tripathi isnt shot or kills himself -- #Boston deserves answers! 4/19/13 8:30 #Watertown #PrayForBoston He deserves a beer and a bad bitch@IzakPratt: Boston Terrorist Attack suspect is 4/19/13 8:34 named Sunil Tripathi. http://t.co/BqDy4Y5Gb7

I cant believe I saw theories on Twitter & Reddit yesterday that Sunil Tripathi 4/19/13 8:35 was suspect 2 in the Boston bombing & now its on the news

60

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aristotle. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans. George A. Kennedy. (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1991).

Bakhtin, Mikail. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. (Austin: University of Texas Press,

1986).

Benoit, William L. “Beyond Genre Theory: The Genesis of Rhetorical Action.” Communication

Monographs 67 (2000).

Bitzer, Lloyd F. “The Rhetorical Situation.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 1.1 (1968).

Campbell, Karlyn K, and Kathleen H. Jamieson. Form and Genre: Shaping Rhetorical Action.

(Falls Church, VA: Speech Communication Association, 1978).

Dow, Bonnie J. “The Function of Epideictic and Deliberative Strategies in Presidential Crisis

Rhetoric.” Western Journal of Speech Communication. Vol. 53, Iss. 3. (1989).

Jasinski, James. Sourcebook on Rhetoric: Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies.

(Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2001).

Miller, Carolyn R. “Genre as Social Action.” Genre and the New Rhetoric. Ed. Aviva Freedman

and Peter Medway. (Bristol: Taylor and Francis, 1994), 23-42.

Wells, Susan. "Genres as Species and Spaces: Literary and Rhetorical Genre in The Anatomy of

Melancholy.” Philosophy & Rhetoric 47.2 (2014).

ACADEMIC VITA

Elizabeth T. Rush [email protected] 224 S Burrowes St. APT B01 State College, PA 16801

EDUCATION: The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA May 2016 Bachelor of Arts, Spanish; Bachelor of Arts, Communication Arts & Sciences Schreyer Honors College, Dean’s List each semester

Thesis Title: “The Social Function of Twitter During Public Crises Toward a Theory of Generic Constraints” Thesis Supervisor: Kirt H. Wilson

EXPERIENCE: Penn State Learning Writing Center, University Park, PA August 2015 — Present Writing Center Coordinator • Prepare and lead weekly staff meetings to present guest speakers and announcements • Facilitate personal statement tutoring by delegating requests among staff Penn State Learning Writing Center, University Park, PA December 2013 — Present Peer Tutor in Writing • Engage in collaborative learning with up to 6 students (undergraduate to PhD level) during weekly shifts • Specialize in personal statement writing for post-graduate applications Center for Democratic Deliberation, University Park, PA September — December 2014 Student Intern • Edited, proofread, and fact-checked 8 lesson plans for Voices of Democracy website •Participated in moderator training for State College community deliberations Centro Hispano Daniel Torres, Reading, PA May — July 2014 Service Coordinator • Facilitated casework for Latino community members in need of medical, employment, domestic, and legal assistance, with average 8 drop-in appointments daily • Translated letters and phone calls from English to Spanish 3 days per week • Wrote 2 speeches for Executive Director to promote Latino acculturation and sense of community

ACADEMIC HONORS: • Liberal Arts Enrichment Award for Education Abroad, Colombia & Brazil 2014; Granada, Spain 2015 • Collegiate Laws of Life Essay Contest on Ethics, 1st Place Award Winner, 2015”

Notes

1 Nathan Jurgenson, "The IRL Fetish," The New Inquiry, June 28 2012, http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-irl- fetish/ (accessed April 9, 2016). 2 Mark Johnson, “The History of Twitter,” Socialnomics. June 26, 2013. http://www.socialnomics.net/2013/01/23/the-history-of-twitter/ (accessed March 10, 2016). 3 Chris Hardwick, interview with Jack Dorsey, Ev Williams, Biz Stone, Nerdist, podcast audio, March 23, 2016, http://nerdist.com/nerdist-podcast-jack-dorsey-ev-williams-and-biz-stone/ 4 Ibid. 5 Carolyn R. Miller, "Genre as Social Action," Quarterly Journal of Speech 70, no. 2 (May 1984): 151-167. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed April 2, 2016). 6 Carolyn R. Miller and Jeanne Fahnestock, "Genres in Scientific and Technical Rhetoric," Poroi: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Rhetorical Analysis & Invention 9, no. 1 (January 2013): 2-4. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed April 9, 2016). 7 Abram Anders, "Pragmatisms by Incongruity: 'Equip.m.ent for Living' from Kenneth Burke to Gilles Deleuze," KB Journal 7.2 (2011): n. pag. KB Journal. The Journal of Kenneth Burke Society, (Spring 2011). 8 Karlyn K. Campbell and K.H. Jamieson, “Form and genre: Shaping rhetorical action.” Speech Communication Association, (1978), 24. 9 Miller, “Genre as Social Action,” 151. 10 Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, Trans. George A. Kennedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 87. 11 Celeste Condit, "The Functions of Epideictic: The Boston Massacre Orations as Exemplar," Communication Quarterly 33.4 (1985): 284-298. Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed April 2, 2016). 12 Sonja K. Foss, “Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice.” Illinois: Waveland Press, 2009. 13 Campbell and Jamieson, “Form and genre,” 27. 14 Ibid. 15 Miller, “Genre as Social Action,” 159. 16 Hara Estroff Marano, “Our Brain’s Negative Bias,” Psychology Today, June 20, 2003, reviewed November 20, 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200306/our-brains-negative-bias (accessed April 9, 2016). 17 Tom Negovan, “Authorities release photos of suspects in Boston Bombing.” WGNTV. April 18, 2013. http://wgntv.com/2013/04/18/authorities-release-photos-of-suspects-in-boston-bombing/ (accessed April 3, 2016). 18 Hayley Tsukayama, "Do You Use Reddit?: Six Percent of American Adults Online Do,” , July 3, 2013. (accessed November 10, 2014) 19 Will Oremus, “Reddit Thinks It Can Solve the Boston Bombings,” Slate. April 17, 2013. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/17/reddit_fingers_boston_bombing_suspect_blue_robe_guy_phot o_shows_striped.html (accessed April 7, 2016). 20 Andrea H. Tapia et al., “Run Amok: Group Crowd Participation in Identifying the Bomb and Bomber from the Boston Marathon Bombing.” 11th International ISCRAM Conference. S.R. Hiltz, M.S. Pfaff, L. Plotnick, and P.C. Shih, eds. (University Park, Pennsylvania, USA, May 2014), 297. 21 Maren Cecilie Hald Bjoergum, "The Credibility of News Media: The Difference in Framing between Traditional Media and Twitter After the Boston Marathon Bombing." Hawaii Pacific University, 2014. Ann Arbor: ProQuest (accessed April 2, 2016). 22 Ben Piven, “Sunil’s saga: Family double-victimized by depression, Internet witch hunt.” Al Jazeera America, February 12, 2016. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2016/2/12/sunil-family-depression- victimization.html?utm_content=bylines&utm_campaign=ajam&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow (accessed April 8, 2016). 23 Jess Bidgood, “Body of Missing Student at Brown is Discovered,” , April 25, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us/sunil-tripathi-student-at-brown-is-found-dead.html (accessed April 6, 2016). 24 Ben Piven, “Sunil’s Saga.” 25 Ibid.

26 Alexander Abad-Santos, “Reddit's 'Find Boston Bombers' Founder Says 'It Was a Disaster' but 'Incredible,'” The Wire, April 22, 2013, http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/04/reddit-find-boston-bombers-founder- interview/64455/ (accessed April 9, 2016). 27 Colin Shultz, "In the Wake of the Boston Marathon Bombing, Twitter Was Full of Lies," SmartNews. Smithsonian.com. October 24, 2013. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-the-wake-of-the- boston-marathon-bombing-twitter-was-full-of-lies-5294419/?no-ist (accessed April 2, 2016). 28 Tapia, et al., “Run Amok,” 268-269. 29 Ibid. 30 Stephanie L. Young, “Running Like a Man, Sitting Like a Girl: Visual Enthymeme and the Case of Caster Semenya,” Women’s Studies in Communication, (2015): 334, DOI: 10.1080/07491409.2015.1046623. 31 Marty Walsh (@MartyWalsh), Twitter post, April 20, 2013, 6:19am. 32 Jeff Bullas, “Pew Report: The demographics of Twitter users,” Ragan.com, June 7, 2012, http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Pew_Report_The_demographics_of_Twitter_users_44999.aspx (accessed April 9, 2016). 33 Tapia, et al., “Run Amok,” 266. 34 Bonnie J. Dow, “The Function of Epideictic and Deliberative Strategies in Presidential Crisis Rhetoric.” Western Journal of Speech Communication. Vol. 53, Iss. 3, (1989), 7. 35 Dara Lind, “The Ugly History of Racist Policing in America,” Vox, April 27, 2015. http://www.vox.com/michael- brown-shooting-ferguson-mo/2014/8/19/6031759/ferguson-history-riots-police-brutality-civil-rights (accessed April 9, 2016). 36 Francis Robles and Julie Bosman, “Autopsy Shows Michael Brown Was Struck at Least 6 Times,” The New York Times, August 17, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/us/michael-brown-autopsy-shows-he-was-shot-at- least-6-times.html (accessed April 9, 2016). 37 Ibid. 38 Lind, “The Ugly History of Racist Policing.” 39 Wesley Lowery, "Police: Multiple Witnesses Say Antonio Martin Pulled Gun on Officer," Washington Post. The Washington Post, December 30, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/12/30/police- multiple-witnesses-say-antonio-martin-pulled-gun-on-officer/ (accessed April 9, 2016). 40 Jason Hanna et al., "Police: Teen Raised Gun before Officer Killed Him near Ferguson," CNN. Cable News Network, December 26, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/24/justice/missouri-officer-involved- shooting/index.html (accessed April 9, 2016). 41 Ibid. 42 James B. Barnes, "A Mega-Troll Has Created A Giant Lie About Antonio Martin That You Need To Know About," Thought Catalog. N.p., December 24, 2014, http://thoughtcatalog.com/james-b-barnes/2014/12/a-mega- troll-has-created-a-giant-lie-about-antonio-martin-that-you-need-to-know-about/ (accessed April 9, 2016). 43 Meaghan Ellis, “Antonio Martin Hoax: ‘Best Friend’ Of Slain Teen Dupes HuffPost With Hoax Tweets About Witnessing His Murder, Sparks Outrage,” Inquisitr.com, December 25, 2014, http://www.inquisitr.com/1704210/antonio-martin-hoax-best-friend-of-slain-teen-dupes--with-hoax-tweets- about-witnessing-his-murder-sparks-outrage/#C9LpcLtVW6qix378.99 (accessed April 9, 2016). 44 Barnes, “A Mega-Troll Has Created A Giant Lie.” 45 Lowery, “Police: Multiple Witnesses Say Antonio Martin Pulled Gun.” 46 Truth B Told (@truthBtold_what), Tweeted post, December 24, 2014, 5:42p.m.. 47 TRIP (TRIP_77), Tweeted post, December 24, 2014, 5:59p.m.. 48 Ryan O’Donnell (@ryanodonnell223), Tweeted post, December 24, 2014, 5:57p.m.. 49 Robinson Meyer, “The Decay of Twitter,” The Atlantic Magazine, November 2, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/conversation-smoosh-twitter-decay/412867/ (accessed April 9, 2016). 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Rebecca Riffkin, “Americans' Trust in Media Remains at Historical Low,” Gallup, September 28, 2015, http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-remains-historical- low.aspx?g_source=Politics&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles (accessed April 9, 2016). 53 Meyer, “The Decay of Twitter.” 54 Miller, “Genre as Social Action,” 165. 55 Ibid.